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A LETTER 



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FROM A 



GENTLEMAN OF BALTIMORE 



TO HIS 



FRIEND IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK, 



ON THE 



^1 



SUBJECT OP SLAVERY 



THIRD EDITION, 




Baltimore: 
sherwood & co., printers 
184-2. 



Si ^-3 






Baltimore, Dec. 12, 1841. 
My Dear «,•*«*«*, 

I have been prevented, by various calls upon my time, 
from complying, as soon as I desired, with a promise I 
made you about mid-summer, to express to you, more 
fully than 1 had before done, my sentiments upon the 
subject of slavery. As about equal portions of my life 
have been spent at the South and at the North, — in the 
slave-holding and in the non-slave-holding States — with 
wide opportunities of observation — and as I am, more- 
over, connected with both these communities by the 
strongest ties of consanguinity and friendship, some value 
may be conceded to my opinions on this head, — and, 
certainly, I may claim for them an exemption from pre- 
judice. 

I acknowledge that my impressions upon the subject of 
negro-slavery are very strong; but this is the result of 
observation and reflection — not of prejudice. At earlier 
periods of my life my opinions faltered; — but that was 
because they were unsupported by sufficient knowledge, 
and unconfirmed by sufficient meditation. 

The inquiry seems to be, whether the people of the 
South, by continuing to hold their slaves in bondage, 
merit the Divine displeasure; — or, what is truly of much 
less consequence, the censure of British and New Eng- 
land abolitionists. The only way to arrive at the will of 
God is to refer to the natural or revealed evidences of it. 
Where the latter exist, and are easily interpreted, there 



is, of course, an end of the inquiry. To question the 
beneficence and wisdom of His arrangements would be 
foolish and irreverent, and I, certainly, have no disposi- 
tion to reason with those who would do so. That the 
Institution of Slavery, then, is one of the primitive do- 
mestic relations, ordained and established by the Creator, 
for wise purposes, and as one of the best means of pro- 
moting the happiness of the human family, I have no 
doubt: nor do I doubt that, by it, the human family are the 
better compacted and interwoven, the system of mutual 
relation and dependency the better established, and the 
great chain of subordination, so essential to the Divine, as 
well as to hum.an Governments, the better sustained. 

The prophetic denunciation of Noah of one of the three 
branches of his family is the first notice of slavery upon 
record; and it occurred, literally, at the very dawn of time. 
Noah spoke under the dictation of Heaven; — his words 
were the words of Omnipotence, and, by them, slavery 
was ordained in the world. So important an act of God 
was not casual; it was the result of premeditation and de- 
sign; it allotted to a distinct portion of the human family a 
position in the world of extreme subordination and depend- 
ency. This was an early and primitive arrangement of 
the Almighty; an Institution set up in the household of 
Noah, to be perpetuated, through all time, upon one of the 
branches of his family. The words of Noah arc: "Cursed 
be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren. 
And he said blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Ca- 
naan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and 
shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his 
servant." Gen. 9th: 25th. 

And we find, afterwards, in chapters 14 and 17, of the 
same Book, that Abraham, the "Friend of God," had ac- 
quired, and owned very many servants, and that God, in 
establishing his covenants with that good man, gave ex- 



5 

press instructions as to the treatment of his slaves, — oi 
those that he had "bought with money of the stranger." 
In Leviticus, 25th chapter, 39th to the 46th verse, 
God, in delivering the law to Moses, says: *'And if 
thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and 
be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a 
bond servant: But as a hired servant, and as a sojourner 
he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year 
of Jubilee: And then shall he depart from thee, and both 
he and his children with him, and shall return unto his 
own family, and unto the possession of his Fathers shall 
he return. For they are my servants which I brought forth 
out of the laud of Egypt; they ^hall not be sold as bond- 
men. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt 
fear thy God. Both thy bond-men and bond-maids, which 
thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about 
you; of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. — 
Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn 
among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families 
that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they 
shall be your possession. jSnd ye shall take them as an 
inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them 
for a possession, they shall be your bond-men forever: But 
over your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not 
rule one over another with rigor." Again: In Exodus, ch. 
21— 20th and 21st verses, God, in delivering the ten com- 
mandments, and sundry other laws and ordinances to the 
Israelites, says: "And if a man smite his servant or his 
maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be 
surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day 
or two, he shall not be punished, /or he is his money. '^ 

So much for the Old Testament: For the New: Although 

w^e have nothing on record that fell immediately from the 

lips of the Saviour on this subject, yet, if St. Peter and 

St. Paul are to be deemed correct expounders of his doc« 

1* 



G 

trines, we have abundant evidence that he deemed it no 
part of his heavenly errand to disturb the arrangements of 
the Creator in regard to slavery in the world. Indeed, 
Christ himself, in his Sermon on the Mount — that admira- 
ble compendium of Ethicks, and the first of his teachings 
on Earth, says: "Think not that I am come to destroy the 
law or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to ful- 
fil: For, verily I say unto you, till Heaven and Earth pass, 
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till 
all be fulfilled." 

St. Paul, the chief of the apostles, in his letter to the 
Ephesians, 6th ch. 5th verse, says: "Servants, be obedient 
to them that are your masters according to the flesh with 
fear and trembling, in singleness of your hearts, as unto 
Christ." Again: in his Epistle to the Colossians, 3d ch. 
2-2d verse, he says: "Servants, obey, in all things, your 
masters according to the flesh, not Vvrith eye-service, as 
men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God." 

In the 4th ch., verse 1st, he says: "Masters, give unto 
your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that 
ye also have a master in Heaven." In his first epistle to 
Timothy, ch. 6th: verse 1st, he says: "Let as many ser- 
vants as are under the yoke count their own masters wor- 
thy of all honor, that the name of God, and his doctrine be 
not blasphemed." In his Epistle to Titus, 2d ch., verse 
9th, he says: "Exhort servants to be obedient unto their 
masters, and to please them well in all things; not answer- 
ing again, not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; 
that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in 
all things." The Apostle Peter, in his first Epistle gen- 
eral, 2d chapter, holds this language: "Servants, be sub- 
ject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and 
gentle, but also to the fro ward." 

These multiplied evidences that the great Author of all 
things, himself, established slavery in the world need no 



comment. They speak, with resistless force, to the point. 
It was as obliviously a part of his design and arrangement 
that slaves should exist, and be patient of their condition 
and obedient to their masters, as that wives and children 
should exist, in a state of subordination and obedience to 
their husbands and parents. 

The establishment, the definition, the rules for the mu- 
tual government of these three domestic relations are 
equally plain upon the face of the sacred record. There 
is no more doubt about one, than another; of neither can 
it be said that it is more clearly inscribed upon the page 
than the rest. 

They all, as well as the other Institutions of God, have 
been assailed, and overthrown, by infidels and miscreants, 
in different States, and at different periods of the world; 
and, sometimes, these mischiefs have been perpetrated, 
even by ignorant zealots and silly fanatics. In France, 
for example, at a very modern era, the Institution of mar- 
riage was repudiated, — and little children were taught to 
turn from the parental shrine, and bend the knee to the 
naked Goddess of Liberty. 

These execrable tenets were inculcated throug-hout the 
State, by men, who, to say the least of them, were quite 
as respectable, both for intelligence and numbers, as those 
who compose the present classes of abolitionists. Yet it 
was quite evident that God ordained marriage, and that his 
Son, with his own lips, had taught little children lessons 
of obedience to their parents. 

Before advancing from this branch of the inquiry it is 
proper that I ask your indulgence, for having quoted, at 
length, the passages of scripture upon which this part of 
the argument rests. The simple array of them, it appears 
to me, leads necessarily to conviction; and it is better that 
the letter should be a little encumbered, than that they 
should be forgotten. 



8 

I propose now to take a very cursory view of the histo- 
ry of negro slavery as connected with Great Britain; that it 
may be seen with what grace the abolitionists of that coun- 
try are venturing to interfere with the properties and 
peace of the inhabitants of this Union. The English, un- 
der the auspices of their Government, engaged in the Af- 
rican slave trade in the }'ear 1562; and, in 16*20, they 
commenced the introduction of slaves into Virginia. In 
1585, Queen EUzabeth granted a Patent to the African 
Company; and the trade in negro slaves was carried on 
extensively under the express sanction of the Crown. In 
159*2, she granted another Patent. In 1618, James 1st 
granted an entirely new and improved charter. In 1631, 
Charles 1st granted another. In 1651, the Rump Parlia- 
ment granted another. The two last were after slaves 
were first introduced into Virginia. After the restora- 
tion, Charles the 2d, in 1672, incorporated his own 
brother, the Duke of York, and others, into a company, 
which contracted to supply the Plantations — ourselves — 
with slaves. 

In 1672, the Royal African Company was incorporated, 
with a capital of one hundred and eleven thousand pounds, 
sterling. 

Until 1698 the slave trade was carried on under the 
auspices of the English Government; and, until then, was 
a monopoly of the Crown; — when the law of 9th and 
10th WiUiam 3d, ch. 26, granted liberty to all the King's 
subjects to trade, on paying a duty of ten per centum for 
repairing African forts. 

Soon after the accession of Anne, in 1701, she wrote a 
letter to her Parliament congratulating them upon her 
having obtained, by Treaty, very great additional facili- 
ties for conducting that most profitable branch of business, 
the trade in negro slaves to the coast of Africa. In 1709- 
11 and 12, Parliament declared the trade open to all the 



subjects of the Realm, upon paying the prescribed duty 
to Government. 

In the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, there is an express 
stipulation that the Spaniards should be annually suppUed, 
by the English, with four thousand eight hundred slaves 
for thirty years, at a stipulated price, — making a hundred 
and forty-four thousand in all. 

Here was the British Crown contracting with a foreign 
Prince for the sale of this great number of negro slaves; 
and this, too, in the palmiest hour of England. It was 
no moment of public depression, of shortened finances 
and oppressive debt, — of defeat and disaster — when the 
nation might have been driven to new and strange expe- 
dients to fill the public purse: nor was the public mind, 
then, benighted and ignorant — when gross sins might 
have been committed without a bad intent. Not at all. 
Happiness and prosperity prevailed in the land; it was 
the day of the triumph of her arms at Blenheim and 
Ramelies; debt she knew not; her revenues were ample; 
religion and letters were in the ascendant; the public 
mind was highly cultivated and improved — not only by 
ancient instructions and the lights of experience, but by 
the daily lessons of that admirable company of moralists, 
Hally, Newton, Congreve, Addison, Steele, Bolingbroke, 
Swift, Dennis and Prior. Yet with all these lights and 
aids to her understanding, England dictated the Treaty of 
Utrecht, and, in that dignified Instrument, bargained to 
supply Spain with negro slaves for a stipulated price. In 
a subsequent and separate Treaty made by England with 
Spain, in the same year, 1713, this bargain— called the 
Assiento contract — was more fully defined. It stipulated, 
''that from the first of May, 1713, to the first of May 1743, 
there should be transported into the Spanish West Indies 
144,000 negroes, at the rate of 4800 a year, and that for 
each negro there should be paid thirty-three and one -third 



10 

pieces of eight." I refer to the Treaties; and to the 
Queen's Speech to the House of Lords the preceding 
year, pending the negotiations prefatory to them. Smol- 
let, in his continuation of Hume, gives us some ac- 
count of these documents. 

This trade, in the year 1748, was found to be an ex- 
tremely beneficial one; and, in that year, the Royal African 
Company relinquished its charter. In 1750, the trade to 
the coast of Africa, was, by act of Parliament, 23d George 
2d, ch. 31, opened to all the subjects of the Realm. The 
act of 5th George 3 — 1765 — vested in the Crown all the 
forts and castles on the African coast; yet the trade was 
still left open and free to all. In 1766, an act of Parlia- 
ment was passed laying duties on slaves imported into the 
British West Indies and North American Plantations. — 
From the year 1562 the English were engaged in this 
trade, and from 15S5 it was openly sanctioned and en- 
couraged by Parliament. The city of Liverpool w'as al- 
most solely built up by it. By act of Parliament of 5th 
George 2d, ch. 7, sec. 1st, negroes were declared to be 
propert}', made liable for the payment of debts, and de- 
clared assets in the hands of executors, &c. 

Upon this mass of Historical and Legislative facts would 
it not be superfluous to go into an argument to shew 
that for centuries — throuo-h the reio-ns of the last Tudor, 
the Steuarts, the Usurping Parliament, Cromw'ell and the 
restored Charles, — WiUiam, Anne, and the Princes of the 
House of Brunswick, — through every vicissitude of family, 
religion, of war and peace, in prosperity and in adversity, it 
was the habit, and avowed policy of the British Government 
to foster and promote this trade in every possible way, that 
her subjects were constantl}'' engaged in it, and that she 
derived habitual revenue from it? It appears so to me; 
and I will not weaken my positions by attempting to en- 
force what is alreadv so self-evident. Our ancestors, the 



11 

ancestors of the present generations in England, and the an- 
cestors of our neighbors in the East and North, were the 
persons who planted slavery in this land; and they did it un- 
der the auspices of their common Government. A pass- 
ing remark may not be out of place here, upon the fact 
that Great Britain, though she was actively engaged for 
near three centuries in the negro slave trade, did not 
see proper to introduce them at home to any great extent. 
This was a matter of policy, and not of conscience. It was 
owing entirely to the narrowness of her territorial limits, 
and the teeming exuberance of her own white population. 
Under the feudal system, the Kingdom swarmed, for cen- 
turies, with white slaves, called villains; who were, habi- 
tually, bought and sold, — and punished with a degree of se- 
verity by their owners that would be shocking to modern 
masters and revolting to modern laws. 

This severe discipline was allowed by law: 25th Edward 
3d ch. 18. By another statute, if these white slaves departed 
from the service of their masters, and went into another 
country, they might be reclaimed, and punished with 
burning in the forehead. If farther proof were necessary 
that the English had no moral scruple about slavery in 
their own land, it might be abundantly found in various 
acts of Parliament and decisions of their Superior Courts 
of three centuries ago — in the reign of the 6th Edward, 
— in which slavery is acknowledged, the word slave is fa- 
miliarly used, and slaves are put upon the footing of ordi- 
nary merchandise. You are not a lawyer, but it is never- 
theless possible that this may fall under a lawyer's eye, 
and you will pardon me for continuing to sustain my posi- 
tions by reference to authority. I cite statute 1st Edward 
6th ch. 3d: Butts vs. Pinny, in the King's Bench, in 1677, 
29th of Charles 2d, and the previous cases therein refer- 
ed to. I close this branch of the subject with the addi- 
tional remark, that, during the hundred and fifty years that 



12 

Great Britain was engaged in importing slaves into the 
Southern Colonies, Virginia was continually protesting 
against it. 

And here let us look a little more closely at the connec- 
tion of our Eastern and Nothern friends with Southern 
slavery, and endeavor to ascertain what is their exact posi- 
tion in regard to the great evil they complain of so bitterly. 
The Constitution limited the period for the introduction 
of slaves into this country to the year 1808. In the Con- 
vention which formed the Constitution, the Delegates 
from Virginia insisted upon its immediate discontinuance, 
deeming it a political evil; but the Representatives from 
the East and North would not listen to it, on the ground 
that their constituents were extensively engaged in the 
slave trade, and must have a reasonable time for winding 
up so large a business. Indeed, when a Committee of 
the Convention had reported in favor of limiting the time 
to the year 1800, and an Amendment was moved to extend 
it to 1808, Virginia voted against it, and the amendment 
was carried by the votes of Massachusetts, Connecticut 
and New Hampshire. Either two of these three States, 
by casting their votes differently, would have sustained 
the Report, and rejected the amendment. See the 
Madison Papers. 

A very large portion of all the property in several of 
the New England States was earned in the slave trade. It 
has been estimated, for example, that if every acre of land 
in Rhode Island were worth a hundred dollars, the aggre- 
gate has been twice over earned by the extensive and long 
continued operations of her citizens in the slave trade. — 
The Towns of New Port, Bristol and Providence, in 
Rhode Island, Stonington, New London and New Ha- 
ven, in Connecticut, Fall River, Boston and Salem, in 
Massachusetts, were engaged to a greater or less extent 
for a number of years in the slave trade; and some of 



13 

them, like Liverpool, were almost solely built up by it. 
Bristol is proverbial; and a large portion of the Town of 
New Port, called Factory Point, now in a state of ruin, 
was devoted for many years to this trade, and few other 
vessels but the largest Guineamen swam at its wharves. 
For all the facts 1 have adduced I refer to the authorities 
cited, and to the records where they will be naturally 
found. The conclusions that are inferable from them are 
too plain and too direct to require further remark or argu- 
ment. 

It now remains for me to make known to you the re- 
sults of my observation upon the actual condition of sla- 
very as it now exists at the South. It appears to me that 
the government of the servants of the South, as a general 
rule, is a very mild and paternal one, — a sway quite as 
lenient as is compatible with a proper subordination, and 
the true happiness of the slave. If the slave is well, he 
is comfortably fed and clothed — rarely overtasked — al- 
lowed all the reasonable indulgences that the white ser- 
vants of other countries enjoy, and, I am inclined to 
think, more: If he is sick, however old, or infirm or worn 
out he may be, the kindest offices of humanity and ten- 
derness are extended to him. In almost all cases, the 
white family show the same interest, and feel the same 
solicitude as if he were one of themselves ; and it is a 
very com-mon thing for a servant, when ill, to refuse to 
permit any one to approach his bed but his master or 
mistress. This feeling has its root in the best affections of 
the heart. 

It may surprise the Northern Abolitionist to be told that 
in many — very many instances at the South — indeed one 
can scarce ride two miles without an example of it — mas- 
ters and servants have lived, from generation to genera- 
tion, in the same family, for an hundred years, in the 
utmost harmony, with the strongest mutual attachments. 



14 

and where it is very evident to the observer that the 
blacks are the happiest portion of the household. They 
are free from care, free from responsibility, free from anx- 
iety, and most of the besetments of human life. What I 
have thus stated is a general rule. There are some sad 
instances of the reverse, to be sure ; but the creneral rule 
certainly applies to nine- tenths, if not a larger portion of 
the community. I am not prepared to admit that the ex- 
ceptions to it are more numerous than the instances, in all 
countries, of conjugal or parental cruelty. Bad men exist 
everywhere; but I cannot admit that the manifestations 
of their wickedness appear more frequently in the ill 
treatment of slaves than of wives or children. A bad 
master would be a bad husband or bad parent, and this, 
whether he lived in New York or Maryland. 

Masters sometimes kill their slaves; husbands some- 
times kill their wives; parents sometimes kill their chil- 
dren; but these acts of ferocity occur very rarely; and, 
when they do, are equally visited with the same condign 
punishment. In my own State, and I believe in her 
sister States of the South, the same scorn and public re- 
probation would fall upon the master who would treat his 
slave with unjust cruelty as would fall upon the husband 
that would oppress his wife, or the parent who would op- 
press his child; and I am very sure that the public sensi- 
bility is quite as alive to these sins, and as apt to detect 
them, in a Southern, as in a Northern community. 

Allow me to add that I know several large estates in 
Maryland, and there are a great many of them in Virginia, 
upon which hundreds of negroes have lived, from father 
to son, for a century, — devoted to their homes, attached 
to the soil, rendering a willing duty and service, clinging 
round their hereditary masters with exemplary devotion 
and truth, worshipping with him in the same Temple, 
kneeling with him at the same Altar, and, with the same 



15 

motives and hopes, adoring the same God. Yet these- 
are the people in whose hands, we are informed, the 
Northern Abolitionist would place the torch and the knife. 
Let them beware, before they set about this foul work, of 
the dreadful consequences that await it. A servile war — 
which, if it be not their aim, it is, at least, the tendency 
of their doctrines to produce — would be attended, in a 
few short months, with the sacrifice of tens of thousands 
of lives, — of the lives of those whom they affect to be- 
friend. The great dread of the enlightened men of the 
South, in case of such a conflict, is not for the white por- 
tion of the community; but for the helpless blacks, who 
would be crushed in masses by the armed multitudes 
in defence of their families, and in vengeance for any 
injuries that might have been inflicted upon them. I can 
look forward to no bound to the slaughter that would fol- 
low such an outbreak. The poor negro would be driven 
to the wall, dragged from his last hiding place, and the 
kindest master's authority could no longer protect him. 
In regard to the general spirit of the legislation of Mary- 
land and Virginia in reference to the people of colour — in 
all their conditions, nothing could be more charitable or 
benign than it is. The highest principles of justice and 
mercy pervade every page of it. Their rights are care- 
fully protected by the laws; and these laws are faithfully 
administered by the courts. And we have laws, more- 
over, appropriating large sums of money for the gradual 
removal from amongst us of the whole race of blacks. 
These laws have been framed in great wisdom and pru- 
dence, and upon experience; and, moving on, slowly 
but certainly, they will ultimately accomplish their most 
beneficent designs, if not disturbed in their operations bj'- 
the rude and inconsiderate hand of abolitionism. 

Though we do not doubt the high origin of the Institu- 
tion of Slavery, and are very sure that it is sanctioned by 



16 

the revealed as well as the natural law, though we ques- 
tion, most positively, the right of British and Northern 
Abolitionists to rob us of property which their ancestors 
forced us to buy from them with money, and while we 
know that our management and control of this property is 
merciful and humane; — we are, nevertheless, of opinion 
that its existence among us — in the present conditions of 
our society — is a political evil; and we design to free 
ourselves from it, in such modes, at such periods, and 
upon such conditions as may comport with our own con- 
venience, and our own notions of justice. In these views 
and measures, we are aware that the great masses of our 
intelligent fellow citizens of the East and North agree with 
us; and it is grateful to us to know that the vile weed of 
Abolitionism is destined to be smothered by the nobler pro- 
ducts of the soil that gave it birth. Without apology for 
extending a letter upon so important a subject to an unusu- 
al length, I remain, as ever, 

Very truly and faithfully, 

Yours, 

J. J. S. 



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